I’ve been indifferent to hostile towards McCain for a long time, and was certainly less than enthusiastic about him becoming the nominee.

Before I learned of the Palin pick via the news, I’d already received several catty messages from left-leaning friends, and I have to say that it never ceases to amaze me how sexist and chauvinistic such people can be, even the self-styled “feminist” women. And along with those comments, which I’ll not repeat here, there was a lot of “McCain must be crazy!” and “This shows how desperate and senile he is!”

I tried to keep myself from being affected by such talk, attempting to keep that vibe from reverberating through me or from trying to convince myself of the opposite. And then I began to look closely at what the left was saying about her. You can tell a lot about a person in observing what they attack in another person.

“Inexperienced, and just a heart-beat away from the presidency” seemed to be a big one. I’ll admit that I share it myself. Of course I heard this most frequently from people who were enthusiastically behind a campaign to elect an even less experienced person to the presidency. Hearing Obama supporters decry the candidacy of an attractive, inexperienced empty suit was truly amusing.

I’m less than certain about Palin, personally. I don’t care for her stands on a few issues, such as abortion and some words of hers which were unfortunately sympathetic to the notion of teaching Creationism in the schools. However, vice-presidents do not have the power to overturn court rulings nor do they have the power to dictate curriculum. Despite the ranting of pro-choice feminists, these are non-issues.

What Palin does seem to be to me is someone who is genuinely in this game for more than her own aggrandizement, something I cannot say about Obama, Biden, Hillary, or even McCain. She may lack in experience will be more than made up for in “guts, integrity and character” as a previous commenter noted, and I suspect that this impression will resonate with many Americans.

Her character, beauty, charm, and outsider status are what her opponents will be unable to refrain from attacking. And that’s exactly what will endear her to millions of Americans.